Books Ive Read in 2013

For those of you who followed my dalliances into blogging while I was at WordFest,  you will recognize this list of mine. It’s a record of every book I read this year, in order of reading. Not the most exciting post I’ve ever made, but I find that people are interested in this nonetheless, so I’ll throw it up here anyway. And yes, you will notice I read 15 less books in 2013 than I did in 2012 and 2011. Why is that? Well I no longer work for a literary festival, and my current job description doesn’t include “reading books”, so unfortunately I have less hours in the day to enjoy my favourite pastime.

If you want to know what I thought of these books, some of them link directly to reviews I’ve written on this blog for them, or on-air reviews I’ve given. Just because I didn’t write a review on the book doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. In fact, I’d like to write reviews on all the books I read, but I simply don’t have the time (see above reasoning), and I’d much rather spend my time reading than attempting to write witty yet interesting anecdotes about 65 different books.

You’ll notice a wide range of titles here-some of that is due to the fact that I was reading books in preparation for my CBC appearances, which required very different genres than I am used to. I can always find redeeming qualities to every book (seriously, I can) so I really enjoyed that experiment.

1. How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
2. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert
4. A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam
5. The Miracles of Ordinary Men by Amanda Leduc
6. The Rapture by Liz Jensen
7. The Village by Nikita Lalwani
8. The Truth About Luck by Iain Reid
9. The Dilettantes: A Novel by Michael Hingston
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
11. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
12. The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper
13. Roost by Ali Bryan
14. Reconciliation by Dorothy Speak
15. You Are a Cat by Sherwin Tija
16. The Green and Purple Skin of the World by Paulo da Costa
17. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
18. Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
19. Caught by Lisa Moore
20. Canary by Nancy Jo Cullen
21. How to Host a Dinner Party by Corey Mintz
22. Festival Man by Geoff Berner
23. Emancipation Day by Wayne Grady
24. Out of Their Minds by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite
25. Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
26. Ballistics by D.W. Wilson
27. Hellgoing by Lynn Coady
28. Screw Everyone by Ophira Eisenberg
29. Secret by L.M. Adeline
30. The Blind Man’s Garden by Nadeem Aslam
31. The Deep Whatsis by Peter Mattei
32. Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahari Delijani
33. Dance,  Gladys Dance by Cassie Stocks
34. The Dark by Claire Mulligan
35. Let’s Explore Owls with Diabetes by David Sedaris
36. Little Cat by Tamara Faith Berger
37. The Devil & the Detective by John Goldbach
38. Death at Christy Burke’s by Anne Emery
39. Beautiful Day by Elin Hildebrand
40. Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
41. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
42. I Know Who You Remind Me Of by Naomi Lewis
43. The Family Took Shape by Shashi Bhat
44. This is How you Die-Various Authors, Edited by Ryan North and Others
45. Life Without Death by Peter Unwin
46. Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked by James Lasdun
47. Almost a Great Escape by Tyler Trafford
48. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
49. Burning from the Inside by Christine Walde
50. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
51. Everything is so Political by Sandra McIntyre
52. The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
53. The Circle by Dave Eggers
54. Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland
55. Cataract City by Craig Davidson
56. Muse by Mary Novik
57. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie
58. Are You Ready to be Lucky? by Rosemary Nixon
59. Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen
60. Corpse Flower by Gloria Ferris
61. Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas
62. Life Class by Ann Charney
63. Eleven Pipers Piping by C.C. Benison
64. Bedrock Faith by Eric Charles May
65. The Guts by Roddy Doyle

So what do you think? Do I need to read more, or should I be embarrassed that I spend this much of my life reading already?